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Technical

How do I keep the first letter from being capitalized when I type on my iPad or iPhone?

Press the “Shift” key before you enter the first letter. This will temporarily disable the automatic capitalization of the first letter.

My computer won't recognize a USB 3.0 drive

The random USB failure on a Mac happens rarely, but should be easy to fix. Try resetting the SMC (System Management Controller) per the following:

Here are the instructions for a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro Retina, or MacBook Pro with an internal non-removable battery:

1. Shutdown your MacBook Air / MacBook Pro
2. Connect the power adapter to the Mac
3. On the MacBook / MacBook Pro keyboard, hold down the Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time
4. Release all keys and the power button at the same time – the little light on the MagSafe adapter may change colors briefly to indicate the SMC has reset
5. Boot your Mac as usual

Highlight the word, then use Control-Command-D
Or right-click and select Look up word

Using your trackpad, tap a word with three fingers and watch the same definition popover appear as if from nowhere. If this doesn’t work for you, make sure the “Look up & data detectors” gesture is enabled in the Trackpad preference pane (System Preferences > Trackpad > Point & Click)

How do I force my trash to empty?

Sometimes the trash bin on your Mac gets hung up and refuses to empty. Also, you may have deleted a large number of files and it is taking forever to empty the trash. Fortunately, there is a simple solution using a simple command from the Terminal utility on your Mac.

IMPORTANT: Enter the command in step #2 exactly. Use copy/paste to make sure you get the entire command. If you omit the /.Trash/ part you may delete everything on your drive. Always have a current external backup before attempting terminal commands.

Open the Terminal App: Finder > Go > Utilities > Terminal

Enter the following command after the prompt:

sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/

Enter your computer password after the prompt

Click Return

Quit Terminal

Important: Enter the command exactly as shown.

How do I keep my iPhone from pocket dialing?

Quick Tip: In the Phone App, don’t leave the phone app set to Favorites. Keep it set to the Keypad.

Your first line of defense against accidental nudges and pokes that may be inflicted on an iPhone in transport is the Sleep/Wake Button. Before slipping your iPhone into a purse or pocket, press the “Sleep/Wake” button on its upper-right edge. When you release it, the screen turns black, indicating that the device is asleep. In that state, the touch screen isn’t responsive to touch. To wake it up tap the “Home” button.

The best defense against pocket dialing is the Passcode Lock. If the iPhone is aroused from sleep with an inadvertent press of its Sleep/Wake or Home button, a password-protected lock screen continues to prevent its use. To set up Passcode protection, tap “Settings > Touch ID & Passcode.” Choose “Turn Passcode On.” Enter your desired Passcode twice.

What is happening when my Mac is being optimized after an OS X update?

Your computer will run slowly for a while because it is reindexing Spotlight. You can use Spotlight Preferences to disable indexing of external drives to reduce temporary slowdowns in system performance while the reindexing is underway.

How do I sort a list of items in Pages?

The current version of Pages (5.6.1) does not have a sorting function. However, you can use Numbers to do the sorting by following this procedure:

Select the text to sort

Paste into a Numbers table

Use Numbers to sort

Select the sorted text

Paste into a Numbers text window (select Text from the menu)

Select the text inside the window

Paste back into Pages

How do I convert a video in MOV format to MP4?

Here are four different ways to do this conversion:

MP4 is a subset of the QuickTime standard, so you can change an MOV to an MP4 format by changing the extension. In a Finder window find the file you want to change, right-click, and select “Rename.”

Download and install Adapter. This is a free program that can convert virtually any media format into any other format.

Download and install Handbrake. Handbrake is a free video encoding and conversion program that is available for both Windows and Mac.

How do I burn a movie to a DVD?

If you want to burn a copy that can be viewed on a computer, select the file in a Finder window, right-click, select “Burn.”

If you want to create a DVD that is viewable in a DVD player, you must use an application. Apple used to have the iDVD app, but they dropped it a while back. There are several paid apps to do this, but the free app Burn should do the job. Note that newer Mac do not have built-in optical drives. There are many inexpensive external optical drives available on Amazon and other sites.

Clicking on the small down arrow next to the record button will allow you to change your input to your iPhone or iPad. This will make recording tutorials or sharing complex bugs a lot easier.

How do I share my screen using Messages?

When you want to share your screen, click Details in the upper-right corner of a Messages window.

Then click the screen sharing button (it looks like two boxes overlaid slightly). The other party will receive an invitation to either see your screen or to share theirs. Once they accept, screen sharing starts.

How do I find and/or correct the spelling of a word?

In most OS X text editors, when you’re typing a word you don’t know or remember how to spell, you can quickly get a list of suggestions by typing as much of the word as you know, then press Escape, Select from the list of possibilities.

You can highlight misspelled words by pressing CMD-;.

You can open the spelling options by pressing CMD-SHIFT-;.

How do I format a thumb drive to be used on both a Mac and a PC?

IMPORTANT: This will erase all the data on the thumb drive (USB drive)

Plug in the USB flash drive to your Mac

Open the Disk Utility app

Select the disk from the list in the sidebar (do this carefully)

Give it a name

Set Format = MS-DOS (FAT)

Set Scheme = Master Boot Record

Click Erase

The USB flash drive now can be used to transfer files between Mac and PC.

How do I take a screen shot on my Mac?

CMD-SHIFT-3 – Snaps a screen capture of the entire screen and saves it to the desktop as a file labeled “Screen Shot” followed by the date.

CMD-SHIFT-4 – Turns the cursor into a selection box that can capture a portion of the screen and save it to desktop as a file.

How do I take a screenshot on my iDevice?

To take a screenshot on your iPhone or iPad, press both the sleep/wake button and the Home button simultaneously. It might take a little practice to get the hang of it, but once your iOS device recognizes the screenshot command, the screen will briefly flash white, as if a camera flash went off.

All screenshots get saved to your device’s Camera Roll. To view your screenshot, open the Photos app and look through your Camera Roll until you find the screenshot you just took. iOS 9 and later makes finding your screen captures easier than ever — it automatically places them in a named Screenshots album.

How do I copy a disk with El Capitan Disk Utility?

As in previous versions, Disk Utility has several options for disk images, such as verifying, creating a checksum (which allows verification by others), resizing, and converting the type. You can create a disk image from any folder (File > New Image > Image from Folder) or any selected mounted volume (File > New Image > Image from [Name]). The Blank Image option remains unchanged from recent releases.

Copying has become more obscure than the previous version. Technically, a copy happens via restore. You select a mounted volume or a disk image you’ve added to Disk Utility and then select Edit > Restore. Choose the source where you want to overwrite the selected item, whether another mounted volume or a disk image.

You used to be able to drag disk images from the Finder into Disk Utilities drive and volume view, but that no longer works. You have to choose File > Open Disk Image and select the file to bring it under management.